Put on your tinfoil hats, everyone—we’ve got a whale of a tale to tell you.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks here at Nerdist. Game of Thrones season is always particularly intense, since most (ahem) of us love it and feverishly obsess over it, and our coverage shows. What makes this season more fun than most, however, is how literally anything is possible. No longer does my book-reader knowledge put me in a position of smug superiority. Whatever we might intonate from the George R.R. Martin text won’t necessarily come into fruition on the series (whether it should or not). Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are on their own now, and they could feasibly do whatever the heck they want with whatever players they deem fit enough to feature.

But don’t think we don’t love to overanalyze the ever-loving crap out of every single easter egg or random passing mention of something from the books. Which is exactly how we came up with our latest cockamamie theory that, like, could maybe possibly totally work? Or could be terrible. Or could be insane and good! Or it could just be that we’re too high on the glue fumes from all these books we’ve been reading deep down in the depths of the Citadel, with nothing but the sound of Samwell scraping shit to pass the time.

Help.

To be honest, we blame writer Joanna Robinson (hi, Jo, we love you), who recently published a post over at Vanity Fair about some super-sleuthing fans who believed they sussed out who would play Rhaegar Targaryen in a potential season seven finale flashback. (Click there if you want to read more.) The story got us thinking: what if Dave and Dan are screwing with us?

The article posits that a British actor named Wilf Scolding may play Rhaegar in the season seven finale, an episode that may well be explicitly about his relationship with Lyanna Stark. Among the things that hint at this is the number of relevant players who have recently begun following the little known Scolding on social media, including Aisling Franciosi, who played Lyanna in a flashback in season six and would, logically, return as the character for another. But what if this is all a ruse? But if it’s all just what Dave and Dan want us to believe?

Sure, we bought it at first: Yess…exactly…it’s Rhaegar Targaryen. Look at all the people who follow him on social media! Including the actors who play Lyanna Stark and Ser Davos. Ooh, yes! Of course! Sure! Yes, that could be who that person may be. But then we had a thought. (That’s always the first problem.)

Didn’t Cersei mention the Golden Company earlier in the season coming to her aide? And wasn’t it THE Golden Company who, in the books, swore their allegiance to a rumored not-dead son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell (who escaped being killed thanks to a swap-out orchestrated by possible-merman Varys), Aegon “Young Griff” VI Targaryen and join him in an invasion of Westeros?!

COULD IT THEN STAND TO REASON THAT THEY WOULD MAYBE CAST AN ACTOR THAT LOOKED LIKE A TARGARYEN AND COULD THAT ACTOR EVERYONE THINKS IS RHAEGAR ACTUALLY BE A YOUNG GRIFF THAT CERSEI IS BRINGING TO KING’S LANDING TO MARRY AND USE THE GOLDEN COMPANY TO IMPLEMENT THEIR RULE OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS ?!

Listen: do we think it’s going to happen? Probably not. (Hopefully not.) Young Griff is, in all likelihood, a fake Targaryen (griff is VERY close to grift). But has this season also been crazy enough for us to consider that literally anything is possible, particularly when it comes to Cersei? Has succession and throne claims played a huge part in the story this year? And is Cersei or is Cersei not considering thinking about and playing the game like her father and she’s bringing everyone to the Dragonpit in an attempt to out-maneuver them?! Absofreakinglutely.

But maybe she’s just planning to play with more wildfire. Or maybe nothing. Or maybe everything!

Like we said, help.

What do you think? Are we JUST that off our rockers or is there something to this? Do we need to go on vacation? Let us know in the comments below.

Image: HBO | GIFs: Giphy

Alicia Lutes is the Managing Editor of Nerdist, host of Fangirling!, and resident Archmaester for all things Thrones. And you can find her on Twitter!

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